Due to the recent scandals in the Tire and Mattress retail sector, Christmas in July has been officially cancelled. The might of the wall-to-wall carpeting sellers association was not enough to convince the National Holiday Committee otherwise. What does this mean? First of all, interest rates are going up. Second: You’ll have to draw Santa on your 7-Up cans yourself. Use a Sharpie. Third: You’ll probably get ticketed for any front yard tire burnings. Fourth: The return lines at Kohl’s will be manageable. The committee’s decision does not affect April’s annual Halloween Underwater celebration so you can continue to nearly drown yourself while dressed up like the count. Go In Peace.

I received my application back from the National Holiday Registration Board. My proposed Holiday has been rejected. Outlined in my 17 page narrative was a solid argument as to why May 14th should hereafter be known and celebrated as Lower Abdominal Pain Day (May 13th being an unofficial Lower Abdominal Paid Day eve). I suppose the enclosed references, Mr. Washington and Mr. Lincoln, were not as convincing as, say, Mr. Franklin might be. Now begins the two year “cooling off period” before I can re-apply with new photos of citizens celebrating the agony of Lower Abdominal Pain. I’m also working on Partial-Day Holidays. 6 Hour (or less) stretches during a day that are legal holidays. Such new boundaries would allow for new holidays – honoring some of our more noble reptiles, perhaps? – in a fun, digestible stretch that would help facilitate the re-gifting process and put a definite deadline on when the better fast food establishments could re-open.

There are entire stores devoted to Christmas. Selling nothing but Christmas decorations and costumes. They are often housed in enormous barn-like structures themselves decorated like insane, endless winter wonderlands filled with trees and lights and fake snow and real elves and candles and candy and noise. These stores thrive all year round, often due to their location near tourist traps and leper colonies. What you don’t see, though, are similar stores dedicated to National Amputation Day. I attribute it to the lack of familiar National Amputation Day songs.

On Friday we received a nasty letter from Reader’s Digest Magazine. It practically ruined the entire holiday for us. I don’t want to go into the details of the letter – they’re very ugly. Let’s just say it used extremely inappropriate language when addressing an 11-year subscriber. The tone was foul and the references to foster care crude and uncalled for. Our family did its best to salvage the weekend and honor our country with ample grilling, but looming over everything were the unexpected, unjustified accusations of the Digest’s editorial board. Awful.

The upcoming Memorial Day holiday reminds us to step back and take stock of all the furniture we’ve destroyed – accidentally, intentionally, or otherwise – over the last year. Remember the end tables, the emergency cots, the love seats, the deck chairs, the ottomans, the hassocks – all shattered and splintered and piled in the front yard and burned after each of the year’s many debilitating personal defeats. And as a tribute to those coffee tables that have gone before, use an electric hammer to nail your remaining furniture to the ceiling and abandon house living altogether. Retreat to the forest where the furniture began as simple trees. Lose the ability to speak in coherent sentences and stop cutting your hair. Burn your clothing and throw rocks at any friends from your former life. Do all of this in memory of your fallen water bed.